My meat order from Niman Ranch arrived, but does not have the bonus “uncured salame nostrano” included. I was kind of looking forward to it, but is it uncouth to point out that the free thing that I didn’t pay for wasn’t included?

Had a great weekend with Liz B. and Matt G. up to visit. I didn’t get home until 4am Saturday morning… agh! On Sunday, I met Liz and Jenny for breakfast (Sam and Dylan showed up too), so I walked from home to the other end of Aurora St. to Lincoln Street Diner (formerly Ziffy’s). Then we (Liz, Jenny, Sam, and I) walked to the Farmer’s Market (earl grey tea with lime sorbet!) and then back to Jenny’s house. Then Liz and I went for a walk around campus while Jenny did some work. We went up to the top of the belltower while they were playing, which was neat to watch (but loud!). We ended up walking over past the Dairy Bar, through Forest Home and then back up to Sibley… needless to say, I required a bit of a late-afternoon nap.

Then we all went to dinner at Just a Taste, which was very good (after waiting forever and splitting a bottle of wine at Symeon’s). We all ordered two little plates of things, so everyone got a little of everything. Everything was very good and we all got to taste a lot of things without being stuffed afterwards. Notable dishes in my mind included the asparagus, the green tea chicken, the lamb, the flank steak with fennel puree… The only thing that wasn’t top-notch (at least to Jenny and I) was the artichoke and spinach flatbread. The bread was a little too doughy and could have been much thinner and crisper because it took away from the flavor of the toppings. Then we went to Madeline’s for dessert. The cake I got was layers of cinnamon cookie-type cake with chocolate cream in between… it was GOOD.

THEN, on Sunday morning we went to Cafe Dewitt for brunch. I had lemon souffle silver dollar pancakes with strawberries. So, it was a weekend of good eating! Definitely a good end to the semester and a good catch-up with friends. It was a little on the spendy side, but absolutely worth it.

Had cinnamon buns and strawberries for dinner last night… You wanna make something of it? I’ve had a craving for cinnamon buns after Caitlin’s recent post. I used a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated that can be made very quickly (no rising involved). It’s a variation on buttermilk biscuits. I didn’t have buttermilk, so I used yogurt (Stonyfield fat-free french vanilla) and they still came out fine. I also subbed cream cheese frosting for plain old milk and powdered sugar icing (which I tend to like better). Not the greatest I’ve ever had or the prettiest, but for superquick preparation purposes, they were pretty darn good and satisfied the craving. I would link to it, but it’s on a member’s only section of the website.